


Angelfish and Starfish

by Graysonsginger



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Nicknames
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-25 18:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19751494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graysonsginger/pseuds/Graysonsginger
Summary: In the two years since the Reach left Earth, a lot has changed. La'gaan quit the Team to become a professor at the Atlantis Conservatory of Sorcery, King Orin stepped down as Aquaman, Kaldur quit the Team to become the leader of the Justice League, Atlantis joined the UN with Garth as its ambassador, and perhaps most surprisingly, Kaldur and La'gaan started dating.Their jobs keep them busy, but they still make time for each other.





	1. Chapter 1

“Excellent spell work, Artur.” La’gaan said, barely keeping a “Neptune’s Beard” off his tongue. The Queen didn’t appreciate him swearing around her son. “Remember as your constructs get more complex, the basics become more important. Breathing, hand positions, heartbeat, tides. Keep everything in sync.”

Artur adjusted his stance, and at La’gaan’s smile of approval, tried the spell again. They were doing targeting practice on the roof of the school—out of the way of anyone else and any vital infrastructure. Artur inherited Mera’s raw power, none of her control, and both her and Orin’s tempers. As the head professor of the Conservatory of Sorcery, La’gaan was the only one trusted to tutor the young prince. And as the co-chair of the Justice League, Kaldur’ahm was the only one brave enough to swim to the roof during one of these lessons.

Though, Kaldur had ample incentive to risk getting hit by one of the Prince’s giant ice squids since his boyfriend was there, looking almost unfamiliar but nonetheless beautiful in his professorial tunic and wraps. Kaldur preferred the shorts, but he didn’t say that out loud as he waited for their lesson to finish.

“Hi Kaldur’ahm.” Artur greeted when he was finally released to go play with friends.

Kaldur gave him a smile, but quickly became distracted by the green arms tugging at his waist.

“Angelfish!” La’gaan said, “What are you doing away from the Watchtower?”

“I wanted to see you, Starfish.” Kaldur didn’t even need to move his arms from behind his back to get La’gaan’s face fins twitching with flustered embarrassment.

“Is that all you wanted?” La’gaan asked with his sharp mouth hovering inches from Kaldur’s own lips. “To look at me?”

“No.” Kaldur still kept his arms pinned respectably behind his back.

“We’re alone up here. You don’t have to be so proper.” La’gaan tilted his boyfriend’s head back with a gentle clawed hand.

“You’re not concerned about your Tenure?”

“Neptune’s Beard.” La’gaan groaned. He wasn’t as easy to tease as he had once been, but it also had been so long since they’d seen each other.

Kaldur smiled and slipped his arms over La’gaan’s shoulders. Along the way, his hands skimmed the dark fins extending from his forearm, traced the invisible tattoos on his shoulders. And in each other’s arms, time became measured by the depths of the ocean and the love in each other’s eyes.

La’gaan thought Kaldur’s eyes were the most beautiful eyes in the seas. Kaldur knew La’gaan’s were. After all, those were the gorgeous, warm red eyes that had finally replaced the deadly red lenses in his dreams.

Eventually, they drifted closer and closer, until their lips just happened to close the gap between them. Their hold on each other was so tight even the tides couldn’t pull them apart as they kissed.

“I missed you.” Kaldur said when they finally separated.

“Me too.” La’gaan answered, resting his forehead against his Angelfish. One finger tapping against the metal braces of the Aquaman suit, he added, “Let’s go home and get you out of that armor. You wear it too much.”

“I thought you said it looked good.” Kaldur teased again, though he knew La’gaan meant to show his concern not make an innuendo.

But with a toothy smirk over his shoulder while he swam towards their house, La’gaan teased back, “It looks better on our floor.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> La'gaan and Kaldur talk eduction.

La’gaan and Kaldur’s home was a roomy Atlantean apartment tucked into a sleepy corner of Poseidonis. With their status, they could have something even more lavish in a more popular part of town if they wanted, but both had realized that they liked cozy and quiet. Perhaps it reminded them more of Shayeris that way. Their apartment was certainly decorated in Shayerisian style with its array of bright paints, shells, and ornate lamps. There were also, as Wally would have put it, souvenirs from their travels—though limited to things that would not quickly degrade in the salt water.

Kaldur took deep breaths through his gills, letting himself lean back while La’gaan massaged his shoulders and arms. Despite the man’s claws and firm touch, he was careful and tender as he persuaded the tense muscles, and his boyfriend, to relax. He hit a spot in his arm sore enough to make Kaldur hiss.

“You okay?”

“Yes. Keep going.”

“Yes, sir” La’gaan’s sarcasm was noted but difficult to care about when the massaging hands on his arm gradually turned from painful to pleasant. “You’re always tight here.” La’gaan observed, tone turning scolding while he ran a hand along Kaldur’s triceps, “I keep telling you to carry the Water-Bearers on your hips.”

“It would throw me off.” Kaldur said, leaning back further until his head rested against his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“You’d get used to it.” La’gaan sighed. “Or…you could always return to your studies and stop needing the Water-Bearers at all. A couple lessons with me, you could even make your tattoos invisible.”

“I want my tattoos to be visible.”

“But they make you look less skilled than you are!” La’gaan protested.

“Not to surface-dwellers. Starfish, I see more metas and aliens on a given day than I do Atlanteans. I’d like to keep this part of me that makes me look Atlantean.”

Kaldur could practically hear La’gaan rolling his eyes, “The gills and webs don’t give it away?”

“I was born with those features.” Kaldur touched the thick black line spiraling around his arm. “But I chose these tattoos.”

The argumentative tone La’gaan had taken on dropped like a stone off a cliff, “…You would not choose your webs? Your gills?”

Realizing the insecurity in his boyfriend’s voice, Kaldur sighed heavily. He couldn’t answer that. His complicated feelings about his own so-called impure traits would only hurt La’gaan, who still struggled with his self-image despite all he’d achieved. So when Kaldur finally spoke again it was with gentle words,

“I look like my mother. She is beautiful, and every part of me inherited from her is beautiful too. But asking if I would choose to look like her is beside the point. That was Neptune’s decision, not mine. My tattoos, I had full control over: their design, their placement, the spell imbued into them. They are mine in a way nothing else is, and I don’t want them to go away.”

La’gaan tugged Kaldur around in his arms so he could look into those magic green eyes. “Angelfish… Is that why you haven’t come back to the Conservatory in all this time?”

Kaldur shrugged, “You know the test to graduate to the next class is internalizing the tattoos.”

“Then we’ll change that.”

“You’ll change a millennia-old tradition?” Kaldur asked, understandably skeptical. But he underestimated his boyfriend’s disregard for tradition.

“I’m the Head Professor of the Conservatory of Sorcery and a knight of the King. I can do what I want.”

“People already think the rules have been bent too much for me. Or have you not noticed the way I am still viewed with suspicion?”

Displeased, La’gaan tapped a finger against Kaldur’s forehead, “Have you not noticed that I can out stubborn anyone? Let me do this for you.”

“My schedule is just-”

“Hey, be direct.” La’gaan reminded him patiently, “If you don’t want to continue your education, say so.”

“I _do_ -”

Before Kaldur could add a caveat, La’gaan took his face in his hands, thumb pressed against his lips. “ _Then let me do this for you_.” He repeated.

Kaldur pulled his boyfriend into an embrace, taking the hand against his mouth in his own and squeezing, “You’re too good for me, Starfish.”

Though Kaldur could not see his boyfriend’s expression he felt the man’s arms tighten around him before whispering, “No, Angelfish. You deserve all this and more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this wasn't too angsty and that the ending was sweet enough to make up for it. I've got an idea for chapter 3 now as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was short but fun, so I may continue adding Kaldur/La'gaan drabbles here.


End file.
